Durnford King

Bill Reed

What do you call a busy day? For our heroes, it's when your Eternian/Etherian celebration on Flower Mountain coincides with Hordak's alliance with the Monstroids and a clumsy Orko vanishing both Adora and Adam's power swords. Whatever comes of all these clashing plot points, I'm sure everyone will sleep well tonight!

Prince Adam (He-Man), Princess Adora (She-Ra), Bow, Glimmer, Orko, Snout Spout, Frosta, Broom, Madame Razz

Hordak

Horde soldiers, prisoners, various rebels, Ore Captain Sludge Man, draft horse, old villager, Monstroids

Horde slave transport, ground buster, Horde truck

How about some action to start the episode? He-Man and She-Ra are here and ready to oblige. It seems they and a party of random rebel compatriots have tracked a shipment of enslaved villagers to a camp near the Fright Zone. The rebels attack, and thanks to the power of the super twins - and Bow and Glimmer - they succeed in rescuing the villagers and making an escape.

This has the result of ruining Hordak's quotas for nucleon ore. We see him going over the numbers - in line graph form, presumably on a projected PowerPoint slide - in his throne room with Ore Captain Sludge Man, who manages the mines. The ore captain complains that the rebels have made mining difficult by taking away his labor force; but Hordak isn't mad at his sludgy employee, and he isn't even worried about the rebels anymore. It seems the Horde commander has just signed a contract with the Monstroids, those evil robots that can change into other forms and almost ruined last Christmas for She-Ra and her friends. Hordak's six new buddies will surely make short work of Etheria's heroes!

Unaware of this looming threat, the Great Rebellion is busy celebrating a special day: it's the Day of the Flowers, and what better place to spend it than on Flower Mountain! Allies from both Eternia and Etheria have come together for this symbolic commemoration of the beauty of Etheria: there's Adora, Adam, Orko, Snout Spout, Frosta, Broom, Madame Razz, and a bunch of other guys who aren't into wearing slacks. (Bow and Glimmer are probably there too, but we don't see much of them after the opening battle scene.) While Adora and Adam are making speeches, Orko is practicing his magic on Flower Mountain's many flowers. Keen to outdo himself, the Trollan tries casting a vanishing spell with his eyes covered. It doesn't seem to work; but after he leaves, we the audience discover that it has a delayed effect - on the wrong thing. Orko's poorly aimed finger was pointed at Adora and Adam's power swords, left sitting out on a random bench - and they vanish!

Into the party rides a malnourished-looking old man, who is dramatically flung from his horse. When Adora comes up to offer aid, the old man explains that his entire village has just been raided - by the Monstroids! This is alarming news for everyone, and Adora and Adam quickly realize that the Monstroids must have teamed up with the Horde and will surely be headed to Flower Mountain next, to ruin the important rebel gathering. It's high time for the twins to transform. There's just one tiny problem: their swords are gone! Adora and Adam spot Orko nearby and quickly put two and two together. Orko realizes what a big goof he must have made, and immediately sets to work trying to bring the magical weapons back. As usual with our royal magician, however, he can't quite come up with the correct spell.

Realizing they'll need to work up a plan that doesn't involve big muscles, Adora and Adam leave Orko to it and start brainstorming. The Monstroids are powered by some kind of heated fuel - so obviously what the rebels need are ice donuts. Adam employs the teamwork of Snout Spout and Frosta: the former to squirt out rings of water, the latter to freeze them. Meanwhile, Adora deputizes Broom and Madame Razz as the first and only members of the rebel air force (maybe they should think about making a real one?), and weighs down Broom's twiggy arms with the donuts. Riding side-saddle behind Razz, Adora takes to the skies and the trio engage in an exciting dogfight with their first Monstroid target.

After a rocky start, the battle goes well, with Adora making pinpoint-accurate donut throws into the Monstroids' innards. Soon four of the six robotic villains are iced out and deactivated. The icing, however, only causes temporary incapacity; in a matter of minutes, the Monstroids will be back up and running. Adam comes up with another plan. Pulling Orko off of his so-far unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the missing power swords, Adam asks the Trollan to magic the ice donuts much larger - at least 15 feet in diameter. With some encouraging words from Adora, Orko does just that, no doubt earning some much-needed self-confidence in the process.

The rebels now have bigger weapons, which they prop on end and ply with blocks and levers. And a good thing too, since the evil robots - with the help of Hordak, who's been watching and backseat-driving the attack from his throne room - have figured out that their heat beams can melt the tinier ice bombs Madame Razz was still trying to use. It's hard to maneuver giant ice rings without superpowers, but with simple tools and a lot of teamwork, the rebels manage it, rolling the things down Flower Mountain and right in amongst the restored and re-attacking Monstroids. The giant donuts smash four of the robots to bits, leaving just two to defeat. Fortunately, it's at this moment that the desperate Orko, having conjured just about every object he's ever lost and some he could swear he's never seen before, finally manages to bring back the missing power swords. Adam and Adora run to their weapons and say their magic words. As She-Ra and He-Man, our heroes direct Frosta in freezing the scenic lake at the mountain's summit. Then they lift out the whole thing and toss the giant ice block onto the last two enemies. Bam! Pow! The Horde is defeated once again.

In the celebration ceremony afterwards, Adora and Adam show everyone this crazy rock they found, which has a flower growing out of it. Adora explains to the (possibly puzzled) crowd that the flower is just like the rebellion, growing against all odds out of the hard rock of the Horde occupation. She urges them all to stay strong, for one day they will surely win their freedom.

• Hordak: And one more thing - I want all those flowers destroyed. / Monstroid (achingly slow): Flowers? You want the most powerful machines in the universe to destroy flowers? / Hordak: You catch on fast.
• Princess Adora: Madame Razz, you and Broom are now officially the Etherian Air Force.
• Hordak: I believe Adora is getting desperate. She's attacking the Monstroids with iced donuts! (laughs, snorts)
• Prince Adam (to Orko): You see? You can do anything you put your mind to.
• Princess Adora: Today, we were attacked by the most powerful machines in the universe. And we won! ... (explaining the symbolism of a weird rock Adam found, which has a flower growing out the middle of it) The Horde is strong like the rock. But we are fragile like the flower. We will never be conquered. But like this flower, which found a way to grow and blossom in this rock, we will find a way to overcome the Horde. I promise you: one day, Etheria will be free.

• She-Ra, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: Just the beginning hands on hips pose is used for a close-up dialogue shot of She-Ra

One partial (missing Spirit/Swift Wind sequence)
Adora's steed is nowhere to be seen today, and Adora makes a late-stage transformation along with her tigerless brother. Usually in these cases of double trouble (see 67005, 67013, 67035, 67027), the He-Man and She-Ra transformations are interweaved; but today our animators were feeling much more linear. Only after She-Ra has transformed do we get to see Adam change to He-Man.

4:10 - Another tricky hiding place from our elusive friend, who peeks down at us from the vine-coiled branch of a purple tree at the top center of the screen. The shot quickly pans away, giving us only a moment to notice.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee suggests that we take a look at Orko, Filmation's favorite object lesson. Today, Orko's behavior can teach us that even weak little Trollans who accidentally disappear swords can make a big difference. The trick is to believe in yourself. "When you believe in yourself," Loo-Kee assures us, "you can do anything."

MOTU crossover

• Like the writer of the previous episode (67074), this one is contributing their first and only POP script. Durnford King wrote for various sci-fi TV shows of the 80s and 90s (both live action and animated), and has the interesting distinction of having been credited on both Filmation's animated Ghostbusters and the movie-based cartoon The Real Ghostbusters.
• Our episode opens with an appearance by the Horde slave transport, a vehicle I'm surprised to find has not shown up since 67009's "The Missing Ax," when She-Ra had to rescue Bow out of one. The vehicle also appeared in the very first episode of the series (67001); today we see it spitting out slaves through its teleport tube, instead of sucking them up, as it was doing in 67001.
• We also discover very quickly that this will be a MOTU crossover story - the first of this season - since the opening sequence shows us He-Man with She-Ra, both twins already transformed and about to lead an attack on a prison area near the main Fright Zone fortress.
• Hordak uses the large projected screen next to his throne, a device we've seen before in 67017 and 67027, to look at a graph of his ore yields over time - a surprisingly business-like thing for our Horde dictator to do.
• The quotas Hordak is so concerned about are those of his "nucleon mines" - nucleon being a material we've never heard about before. We'll see whether it comes up again!
• Standing next to Hordak as he's checking the data is a character with the fantastic name of "Ore Captain Sludge Man," who I thought looked like the muddy Melog of 67042's "Enemy With My Face." On further research I find he's a better match with the mud monsters conjured by 67031's "The Reluctant Wizard."
• Hordak name drops the "Monstroids," lumbering and largely ineffectual enemies who appeared in the Christmas Special and, like their good-guy counterparts the "Manchines," I thought destined never to appear again. In the case of the Monstroids, at least, I guess I was wrong! When they finally do make an appearance in the episode, we find three of them looking identical to the first three Monstroids She-Ra encountered during the holidays.
• Good news everyone - Snout Spout is back! The elephant-faced muscle man made an appearance earlier this season in 67068's "Out of the Cocoon," and he's back again here as part of an Etherian/Eternian contingent gathered on a mountaintop to celebrate "The Day of the Flowers." (The mountain is appropriately named "Flower Mountain.")
• Interestingly, Adora suggests in her speech that Snout Spout journeyed there from Eternia along with Adam - which is a little odd considering that Snouty's other episode appearances (67025, 67068) made it seem as if he lived on Etheria. Though let's not forget, back in 67025 they were still calling him "Hose Nose" - this episode is the first one where the character is referred to aloud by his action-figure-accurate name.
• Other returning characters among the flowery contingent include Orko and Frosta, both appearing for the first time this season. Orko played a big part in the previous season's finale (67065), but Frosta hasn't been seen since 67055's "Loo-Kee Lends a Hand."
• Among the crowds of celebrating rebels are many familiar character designs. In particular, the woman who so loudly and dramatically reacts to the news of the Monstroids seems to have been copied from the paranoid Emma, who graced MU120's "Monster on the Mountain."
• MOTU scholars will remember that this is not the first time that Orko has accidentally caused Prince Adam's power sword to vanish. The Trollan also managed it way back in MU003's "Disappearing Act" (though the "disappearing" part of the title was mainly a reference to Skeletor's invisibility caps, not Orko's magical goof).
• The site of Flower Mountain and today's flower-based plot reminds us of Hordak's great hatred of flowers, first introduced in the wonderful 67063's "Flowers for Hordak."
• This story is also one of those we've seen a few times that devise various contrivances to delay the appearance of the superpowered alter egos. I've noted the tendency of writer Don Heckman (I don't think it's any exaggeration to describe him as my greatest enemy) to pull these kinds of stunts - see 67057 or 67073. Also see my related discussion of omnipotent animated genies and the difficulty in overcoming summoning them, at the bottom of the commentary for MU090.
• There's a potential for my having to resurrect the old sub-category "Things that come out of Orko" today - as the Trollan magician spends a lot of off-screen time trying to conjure the lost swords, and instead - as he puts it - finds "almost everything I ever lost." The lost objects didn't necessarily come out of him, so they may not count towards the sub-category; but why not catalog them? We get a quick glimpse of a huge pile of very random objects Orko has produced, including a patchwork quilt, a sink (though it doesn't look like the proverbial kitchen sink), a candelabra, a cardboard box, a bowling ball, a star chart, the handlebars of a bicycle (?), a soft cushion, a string of pearls, a baseball bat, what could be a wagon wheel, a pitcher, an umbrella, a wooden chair, a mop and bucket, a side table (or perhaps an ottoman), and a big rubber ball. Whew!
• With all his remote spying that he does today, Hordak calls to mind the even more thoroughly spy-happy Skeletor. I'm sure the comparison with his hated former pupil would enrage our Horde commander.
• We don't get to see the Monstroids do much of their evil transforming today, but the one instance we do witness confirms the fact that it's still very stupid. The bug-like Monstroid which is the first one that Adora, Razz, and Broom attack turns itself into a flying machine through the overly simplistic expedient of spreading its legs. There. Just try not to read anything into that.
• The lead Monstroid who communicates with Hordak talks in...cre...di...bly.... slow...ly. I suspect they slowed down his voice to make it sound deeper.
• "Making things big is something you're very good at, Orko," Adora tells the magician; but making things big was exactly what Orko claimed to be unable to do in MU092's "The Littlest Giant." To be fair, that episode itself seemed to be guilty of some inconsistencies, since later in the same story Orko is easily able to shrink someone, so you'd think he'd be capable of the opposite. Even if he couldn't do it then, I suppose it's always possible Orko has learned new skills since.
• Ending credits variation: Yep, still the alternate background painting in the credits, featuring Castle Bright Moon.

• Yes, it would be easy to blame Orko's bumbling for today's disaster with the twins' swords. Believe me, I want to. But as usual when Adam and Adora experience weapon dysfunction, more than a little of the blame has to lie on them. Why, for instance, did they choose to place their usually concealed magical blades on a big undefended display table, where careless magicians could easily zap them by accident?
• Interesting to consider the terms of Hordak's alliance with the Monstroids. Recall that in the Christmas Special our Horde commander and his minions were so intimidated at the appearance of the giant transforming robots that they simply fled. What kind of deal would convince these arrogant automatons to take orders from the tiny, fragile Horde commander? I wonder whether the precious nucleon Hordak is mining can be used as fuel for the robots, making the bolstering of Horde slave labor advantageous for both parties.
• Princess Adora claims that if Flower Mountain is lost, her people "will lose heart - and the rebellion will fail." That's a lot of fuss for a mountain we never visited or heard of before today!
• Are Adam and Adora playing it fast and loose with their secret identities? As the twins are standing within earshot of both Snout Spout and Frosta (who, we assume, are not on the admittedly expanding and imprecise list of the "few others" who know Adora's secret), Adam declares, "I think it's time He-Man and She-Ra made their appearances." The pair then deliberately walk over to the "bench" where their swords were so blatantly resting. Want to make it just a little less obvious, chief?
• I will say that, for an episode that is patently trying to delay the inevitable by making it difficult for our sibling heroes to transform, we get a pretty good story out of it. Adora and Adam's alternate plans for stopping the Monstroids are interesting and clever, and rope in plenty of side characters, giving them their own chance to shine.
• There's a very weird and rather glaring omission in this episode about flowers: Perfuma. The flower-based heroine is somehow absent on the Day of the Flowers, the one day where you'd think she'd basically run the ceremonies. Her absence is completely baffling, unless we imagine that the other rebels just find her too insufferable to handle on Flower Day.
• I'm not sure what made Adam decide that the optimum shape for ice bombs was a donut. Was he hungry? Or was he already imagining the bombs being draped on Broom's arms like a series of cheap plastic glow bracelets?
• It is a tad hard to believe that, during the aerial attack scene, each gigantic, towering Monstroid is immediately felled when penetrated by an ice donut that's even smaller in diameter than the baked goods Dunkin produces. Also difficult to swallow is how Adora knows exactly where to throw each bomb to hit the most vulnerable bits of the robots (they keep their heated engines in their heads, it seems).
• In the continuing adventures - or lack thereof - of hiding secret identities, no one seems to wonder why She-Ra and He-Man are failing to show up for most of the episode, and when the pair finally do put in an appearance, no one asks where they came from or what took them so long. Sigh. When He-Man lost his power sword in MU056's "Quest for the Sword," Prince Adam's resulting and continuing failure to appear definitely caught Teela's attention!
• I don't want my entire commentary section to be negative nitpicking comments; buuuuut... It's weird that when She-Ra and He-Man at last show up on the scene, they just continue the "hit Monstroids with big chunks of ice" battle plan that they were already executing just fine as their normal selves. (It actually seemed that the Monstroids had just found a way to repel ice-based attacks, since Hordak reminded them they had lasers.) True, this time the heroes do it with a whole lake, something Adora and Adam would have found difficult; but it seems like they could have just kept making giant donuts and achieved the same result. It would have been more fun if our superpowered twins, when finally let loose, did something really over-the-top and smashy-smashy, like each pick up a Monstroid and just bang them against each other until they were nothing but loose bolts.
• Speaking of banged-up Monstroids... are they all... dead now? There doesn't seem much chance of them rebuilding themselves.
• During the final celebration scene, we see many rebels brandishing spears and bows - weapons they didn't use at all during the actual battle. Not that they would have helped against metal robots!
• This episode was not terrible, though it did have some plotting issues that had me scratching my head a bit, as a perusal of this section will show. The Monstroids definitely aren't my favorite She-Ra villains, but it was after all rather nice to see those silly old knock-off transformers again.